Incomia

In this week’s episode of SUCCESS Line , we get granular, diving deep into the fundamentals of branding, positioning and marketing.  My guest, Gerald, is a consultant and speaker who uses his background as a musician to help companies ramp up their productivity and accomplish more every day. He came on the show to discuss the website he just launched—one of the five he manages. He is eager to learn how to drive traffic to his website and the products and services he sells through it.  First, Gerald is diluting his own traffic by having five distinct websites—and diluted focus yields diluted results. We first focused on which website he should pour energy into, and then I walked him through the tangible tools he can use to market his brand online and achieve consistent and predictable growth.  If you’ve ever struggled to drive traffic to your website or brand, take out a notebook and read on for my top three takeaways.  1. Clear is greater than clever.  W...

Entrepreneur Steve MacDonald inched his way up Cotopaxi, a 20,000-foot tall volcano in Ecuador. He was tied in to his fellow climbers, and at best, they covered 50 feet per minute, one halting, shuffled step at a time. Darkness engulfed him on the slow and treacherous climb. He looked up toward a peak he couldn’t see. He looked down at the edge of an ice shelf, and couldn’t see that either. Exhaustion swallowed him, taunted him, told him to give up. “You look down and say, I can go back down. But you also realize, if I [mess] this up, I’m literally going to slide off this mountain, and you’ll never see me again.” This is the dilemma every entrepreneur, solopreneur or side-hustler faces. To succeed requires a fight into the unknown. Giving up is equally perilous. MacDonald turned his thoughts from quitting to pushing for the summit. Some 400 feet before reaching the top, the climbing team accepted that they would run out of daylight before they could reach the summit. This personal ...

In the pre-ebook days, I was the person whose biggest vacation dilemma was which books to bring with me. (Which meant I was also the person with the heaviest suitcase.) I’m a big reader all year round, and I like to use summer to dig into books that I really love and can’t put down. That includes fiction, but I also enjoy personal development books that connect with my own experiences and teach me more about myself, my attitude to life and the world around me. I’ve put together a list of four of my favorite self-improvement books that I think deserve space on your shelf and in your summer schedule. To be honest, choosing just four was tough. The first two focus on very practical advice, whereas the second two delve into the magical realm. I’m a firm believer that these are two sides of the personal development coin, and you’re missing out if you try one without the other. I talk more about my selections in this week’s SUCCESS Stories . Take a listen!  Disclaimer: I didn’t in...

Intelligence, talent and charm are great, but more often than not these aren’t what separate the wealthiest among us from the poorest. Instead, the differences are in our daily habits. Do you realize that these subconscious, second-nature activities make up 40 percent of our waking hours? That means that two out of every five minutes, all day and every day, we operate on autopilot. It’s true: Habits are neural pathways stored in the basal ganglia, a golf ball-size mass of tissue right in the center of our brains, in the limbic system.  This neural fast lane saves the brain energy: When a habit is formed and stored in this region, the parts of the brain involved in deeper decision-making cease to participate in the activity. However, we all know there are good habits and bad habits . I spent years studying the difference between the habits of our country’s rich and poor, questioning hundreds of individuals. On the rich side, these were people with annual gross income north of $16...

Every day we make dozens of little choices that either benefit us by asserting our ideas or diminish us because we hesitate in making our views or desires known. Sometimes it seems easier to go with the flow to avoid potential conflict. But the truth is that letting people walk all over you can increase feelings of stress and anxiety, and it might eventually lessen your feelings of self-worth and play to your insecurities. Learning to stand up for yourself will help you take charge of your life, believe in your own power and embolden you to reach for your dreams. The stronger you feel, the stronger you will become. Learn to stand up for yourself in any situation with these 10 simple yet powerful steps. 1. Practice being transparent and authentic. It might be difficult at times, but if you learn to express yourself openly and honestly, it will feel like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders. So often, we hide behind a halfhearted smile and nod instead of saying what we think...

What does it take to create an innovative breakthrough product? It is not an insignificant question because business innovators typically invest a lot of time and money getting their big idea to market. For those who make it, the rewards—financial and otherwise—can be incredible. The so-called “first mover’s advantage” is real and means the successful innovator just may dictate the terms in a whole new field. Amazon.com was the first big E-commerce company . It is still No. 1. Starbucks was the first company to popularize gourmet coffee. eBay was the first online auction site. But for every eBay and Starbucks there are hundreds of other companies that never did break out. So what’s the difference? A look at some business innovations—some serious and some fun—sheds some light. Envisioning a Market During the World War II rubber shortage , the U.S. government put out a call for the industry to invent synthetic rubber. General Electric created a substance called “gupp.” It was interest...

The average person gets asked for financial support in many ways. Usually, we get bombarded with GoFundMe requests and Facebook fundraisers or asked to donate to a collection at work for a colleague’s baby shower or wedding. Although those situations can be mildly challenging to say no to, it’s not too difficult to create a budget line to prepare for them and move on.  It can be a struggle when someone we love asks to borrow money or otherwise needs financial support, and we can be caught off guard when a friend or family member asks us for a large sum of money. Listen to this week’s episode of the rich & REGULAR podcast on financial help and continue reading below for some ideas on how to say no graciously when someone asks you for money.  <iframe src=”https://ift.tt/3jke7jV; width=”100%” height=”180″ frameborder=”0″ title=”Asking for Financial Help”></iframe> Say no kindly.  When someone asks to borrow money, we can feel guilty and maybe even ashame...

“What’s the one thing you would tell people who want to create wealth ?” If you’ve ever listened to a podcast or read an article in which a financial expert is being interviewed, you’ve likely heard them respond to a version of this question. The guru is ready to knock it out of the park. They’ve been asked this question a million times before, so they’re ready to go with a canned answer—something along the lines of “start yesterday.” It’s meant to motivate people to take immediate action and harness the power of time with their investing. It’s well-intended, but this advice is incomplete. In truth, many of the people who’ve built successful businesses or achieved admirable levels of wealth had to withstand some difficult moments after getting started. Yet against all odds they tapped into their inner strength, courage and perseverance to complete the mission at hand. Our life experience is no different. Like you, most likely, we’ve had our share of highs and lows. In those mom...

Today, we’re rolling out an all new design for I Will Teach You To Be Rich. You’ll find our new design on our website, Instagram, our emails, and across our brand. I thought it’d be fun to take you behind the scenes of our design process. “3 clicks to an answer” Early on in the design process, I had a call with the team. We worked with our internal team of engineers, designers, growth/SEO experts, plus our external design partner, Engin . I shared some of my philosophies about our brand and design philosophy. One of them: “3 clicks to an answer.” If you come to iwt.com and you want to know how to negotiate your salary, let’s get you there within 3 clicks. If you want to find a business idea or learn how to make more money, same thing. The idea is that companies love to talk about themselves (“ Here’s our brand purpose…ZzzzZzzzZ ”), but users mostly want answers to their own problems. In our company, we have a phrase about our readers: “At IWT, we are but a moment in their ...

Why do most personal brands fail? It’s not, as you might assume, because the brand is not good enough, or because the person who runs it is not intelligent enough. Most personal brands fail because they get absorbed into the noise —the noise created by the industry, by their competitors and even the noise brands create for themselves.  The first and hardest battle for all entrepreneurs is building a unique brand that can break through the noise. Most brands struggle to be noticed and remembered in our overly saturated digital age . But business leader and best-selling author Scott McCain explains that “mindshare precedes market share.” In other words, your brand must occupy space in someone’s mind before they will ever even consider taking out their wallet and buying your product or service.  So how does a personal brand break through the noise?  It is not just a random roll of the dice; there are straightforward tactical strategies you can use to stand out and become ...

Now that the pandemic is slowly ending, most employees aren’t ready to return to the office full-time. Seventy-three percent of people want to continue working remotely, according to research from Edelman Data x Intelligence. Some people want to stay home the entire week. Others are negotiating a hybrid schedule with a few days in-office. Either way, both groups are re-examining how work affects their well-being. Employees can’t do it alone. Companies should acknowledge that in a post-pandemic world, CEOs, executives and managers can build systems to improve workers’ well-being. In this episode of Brilliant Thoughts , SUCCESS People Editor Tristan Ahumada talks to Jim Harter about what makes workers thrive. Good managers invest in five areas of a person’s life: their expectations, their personal development, their strengths, their opinions and their purpose. Harter discusses each area and more in Gallup’s new book, Wellbeing at Work: How to Build Resilient and Thriving Teams. Har...

Tracy Ross, a couples therapist based in New York City, is no stranger to seeing people get rejected. Lucky for us, the ways she coaches her clients to recover from a bad breakup can be instructive anytime you are spurned, even as a seller. 1. Feel your emotions.  People often avoid feeling the pain and sadness that accompanies a breakup, Ross says. They’ll try to numb or distract themselves by pretending they don’t care or quickly getting involved with someone else. Ross says that although it’s important to be resilient , it’s also crucial to process and really feel your negative emotions. The same applies in sales: Don’t ignore rejection. It’s important to let yourself feel upset, because it’ll likely motivate you to improve your skills as a seller. 2. Surround yourself with the right people.  After a breakup, it’s important to avoid those who give unsolicited advice like, “I never liked him anyway.” The same can be said of who you surround yourself with professionally....

If you have a groundbreaking entrepreneurial idea floating around your head, then you might be wondering what to consider before starting a business .  Adopting this simple mentality will help: The more planning you do upfront, the better off your new business venture will be. It’s just like taking a vacation. You likely knock out all the logistical tasks first, such as reserving a rental car and booking your hotel. You might then hunt around for the best deals on flights and accommodations. And that planning will pay off by saving you time and money.  Of course, much like with a vacation, there will always be moments that don’t go as planned with a new business. But making strategic decisions before opening your doors will help you avoid some of the common pitfalls. So, where to start? Unsurprisingly, finances are at the top of the planning list. Financial considerations for setting up your business—such as cash flow management and forecasting—should always be your baseline...

Allowing employees to work from home will definitely zap company culture and drain productivity. Or at least that’s what many entrepreneurs believed just one year ago. Since then, the labor landscape has shapeshifted and, in what felt like a global case study for remote work, virtual workers proved that they did not succumb to distraction or slack off when given more autonomy and flexibility.  In fact, rather than working less, most remote workers reported putting in more hours and becoming more productive when they ditched the office. RescueTime , a time tracking and distraction-blocking software company that serves millions of users, found that remote workers spent 58 more hours on core work over the year and were 20 percent more likely to complete their daily tasks than in-office workers. For established companies who rely on a remote workforce, like BELAY —a staffing company that provides virtual support teams—this rush of productivity is no surprise. For the past decade, ...